


yours sincerely

by berkingbad



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Drunk Liam, Drunk Niall, M/M, Post-Break Up, Sad Harry, Sad with a Happy Ending, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-16
Updated: 2015-01-16
Packaged: 2018-03-07 19:04:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3179756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/berkingbad/pseuds/berkingbad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry and Louis broke up six months ago, and Harry is still heartbroken. To make things worse, the "always in my heart" tweet is about to be the second most retweeted in history.</p><p>Short and angsty, with copious amounts of sad!Harry. (But don't worry, there's a happy ending.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	yours sincerely

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this post by huffleharry on tumblr:  
> "Someone write an angsty fic where that tweet hits 2nd most retweeted but they aren't together anymore so it's like PAIN for the both of them and then Harry calls Louis (drunk or something) like "did you mean it?" And Louis is confused and Harry says "did you really mean I'm always in your heart?" And Harry's crying Louis is quiet for a couple seconds but it feels like hours and finally he whispers "of course I did, haz"
> 
> As always, thank you to Naomi for beta reading for me! (leedsboys / oh-nanaelizabeth on tumblr)
> 
> Follow me on tumblr if you enjoyed it :)  
> Harry/Louis/Larry blog: leedsboys  
> main: kirklandhouse

\- - -

It’s a cold, bleak January day, and since the sun hasn’t emerged from behind its cloud cover in weeks, the world is growing steadily darker. And greyer. Harry feels very grey, sitting on the sea wall despite the warnings of his handlers, and his better judgment. He shivers as the wind picks up, making the tips of the waves choppy.

 

And on top of the bitter, relentless cold, his mobile won’t shut up. His notifications screen is full – literally full; it’s given up on letting him clear the feed – of alerts from Twitter. That tweet from years ago seems to have reared its now-ugly head again. Harry sighs and pockets his phone, mentally kicking himself for not bringing his other one. That way he could at least send Zayn a text without constant banner alerts: “so-and-so retweeted a tweet you were mentioned in.” Seven hundred fucking _thousand_ times.

 

Harry can distinctly remember the day Louis posted that tweet. Back in 2011, back when the band was fresh and new and young, back when _he_ felt fresh and new and young. Now he feels old, used up, almost like he can understand where Katy Perry was coming from when she wrote those lyrics about feeling like a plastic bag.

 

Harry groans and swings his legs up onto the concrete, turning his body so that he can lay flat on his back. He yanks his hood up before resting his head on the wall, and pulls his sunglasses over his eyes, even though at this point he can’t even really remember what the sun looks like. English winters have never been picturesque.

 

It’s never good when he gets to thinking about the past.

 

He pulls his phone out of his pocket again after a few moments, untangling his earbuds and putting them into his ears. With the sound of the waves and the gulls muffled, he thumbs through his music library until he finds the song he’s looking for. He sets it on repeat, then closes his eyes and listens.

 

He does feel quite a bit like a plastic bag, if he’s being honest.

 

He’s lost count of how many times the song has played when he hears his bodyguard clearing his throat. He yanks an earbud out of his ear and just barely opens his eyes. Lionel, his newest bodyguard, barely older than himself but with probably 200% more muscle mass, is towering over him, looking uncomfortable.

 

“Sorry, Mr. Styles, but I thought you might want to know those girls were taking pictures of you.” Lionel jerks a thumb over his shoulder.

 

Harry sits up and hears a few muffled shrieks. He pulls the other earbud out of his ear.

 

“How long have they been there?” he asks.

 

“Not long, just a few minutes. I think they thought you were dead,” Lionel says, scratching at the back of his neck with a thickly gloved hand. Harry notes the absence of a scarf, and thinks he probably should get him one. Lionel has been very kind. And patient. Especially all those times Harry insisted on going out because he was starting to go stir-crazy being cooped up in his flat in London, which, come to think of it, is exactly how they ended up here in Brighton.

 

“Right.” Harry sighs, sitting up and swinging his legs back over the side of the wall, facing away from the sea this time. He stands up and makes his way towards the group of girls, whose frantic whispers only get louder as he approaches them, which has never really made sense to him.

 

“Hello, I’m Harry,” he says politely, shaking hands with each of them. They look like they could be sisters, all matching blonde hair and bright blue eyes. Usually he tries to maintain eye contact when he’s talking to people, but their eyes remind him of a certain Twitter user whose expired declaration of love is currently blowing up the phone in his pocket.

 

They all seem lost for words.

 

“I’m, uh, not dead,” Harry offers, cracking a smile.

 

They all but collapse into giggles, clutching their phones in their gloved hands.

 

“Would you like to take a picture?”

 

“ _Yesyesyesyesyes ohmygod thankyousomuch_.”

 

The usual chorus, but he’d always thought it was sweet how grateful the fans were. As though he were some sort of deity instead of a person. This, too, never really made sense to him.

 

He takes a step forward to position himself in the middle, and the girls part in the middle like the Red Sea. Lionel had already made his way over and was collecting each of their mobiles, as was the usual practice.

 

They pose, the girls smiling from ear to ear, and Harry unable to do much more than push up the corners of his mouth a bit. Halfway through he realizes he’s still wearing his sunglasses, which probably makes him look like a douchebag considering it’s completely cloudy, but he can’t be bothered to take them off at this point.

 

Once each of the girls had a few photos on their phones, Harry hugs each of them goodbye, and makes his way back to the SUV with Lionel.

 

Just before Lionel closes the rear door after Harry had climbed into the car, he asks him quietly, “You alright, Mr. Styles?”

 

Harry looks at him. He had never noticed the tiny white scar that cut through the tail of his left eyebrow, nor the pockmarks left by teenage acne on his cheeks. Suddenly, Harry feels closer to Lionel than he ever has before.

 

“Yeah, yeah. I’m good. Thanks, mate.”

 

\- - -

 

By the time he’s dropped off at his flat in London, night has fallen over the city, cold and heavy. Harry finds his other phone on the counter in the kitchen, exactly where he’d thought he had left it while retracing his steps during the hour and a half drive. He has fifteen unread texts: a few from Liam and Zayn, and the rest are from Niall, who is, apparently, already getting drunk.

 

Harry can’t help but chuckle as he reads through the messages he’d missed. It starts off quite normal, with the usual:

_hey come over to my place tonight, i’m making wings!_

 

But it had progressed within an hour to:

_haRRY IF YUO DONT ANSR UR PHONE IM CALLIN THE COPS_

_I never trusted that LEO bloke_

_wot kinda name is LEO_

_hahaha my phone keeps making it capitals_

_LEO_

_LEOOOOOOO_

_but tell him to bring u to my place_

_i have beer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_

Harry presses his thumb to Niall’s name, resting his elbow on the countertop and his chin in his hand. Niall picks up after two rings.

 

“Oi!” Niall shouts on the other end. Harry can hear commotion in the background, people talking and laughing, and of course, bottles clinking.  “Where have you been? Twitter thought you were dead again for a good, dunno, like twenty minutes.”

 

Harry laughs, but it comes out sounding hollow. “No, just went down to Brighton for some, uh, fresh air.”

 

“You’re sooooooo full of shit, mate. C’m over. Plenty o’ booze.”

 

“Actually, I might just stick around my flat, got some things to catch up on, you know,” Harry says. As he’s speaking, he can hear Niall’s phone being passed around.

 

“Harry!”

 

“Hi, Liam. Alright?”

 

“Yeah, ‘m alright. Real question is, are _you._ ” Liam always gets weirdly philosophical and extra overprotective when he’s drunk.

 

Harry rolls his eyes, even though they can’t see him.

 

“Yeah, yeah. I’m good. Listen, I don’t really want -”

 

Liam cuts him off. “Look, Nialler’s not gonna let you not come. Just swing by, have a drink, it’ll be good for you!”

 

Harry sighs.

 

“See you in a bit!”

 

Harry can hear more movement, then a muffled “ _fuckwheresthe-_ “ before the call ends.

 

\- - -

 

Niall wasn’t joking, he did have plenty of beer. And vodka, and whisky, and rum. And wings.

 

Niall slings an arm around Harry’s shoulders as soon as he steps through the door, steering him towards the kitchen.

 

“Jamie Oliver taught me how to make these,” Niall says proudly, giving Harry a little push towards the food.

 

“I think you mean Jamie Oliver’s cookbook,” Harry says, but Niall doesn’t hear him, seeing as he’s busy chugging a Jägerbomb that Harry is pretty sure hadn’t been in his hand a second ago.

 

“I’m so glad you’re here, mate! Listen, have some wings, have a drink, we’re gonna watch the X Factor in a sec and pretend we’re the judges,” Niall slurs, a sloppy smile smeared across his face.

 

“Yeah, okay, thanks,” Harry says, pretending to reach for a bottle of vodka until Niall skips – literally skips; Harry has never met a person with as much physical dexterity despite intense levels of inebriation as Niall – off into the living room.

 

Once he’s gone, Harry leans against the counter, pulling out his phone to check the time to see how long he is socially required to stay until he can leave and go back home. There are even more Twitter notifications. Apparently, that old tweet has transformed into a cockroach and is refusing to die.

 

“Hey, man.”

 

Harry looks up to see Zayn making his way across the kitchen towards him. Harry nods his head in greeting, clicking his phone asleep and putting it on the counter beside him. It lights up again almost immediately.

 

Zayn raises his eyebrows. “Got some Twitter beef goin’ on?”

 

“Almost exactly the opposite.”

 

Zayn tilts his head in confusion, scratching absentmindedly at his _Zap!_ tattoo. Harry figures it isn’t worth it to explain, so he grabs his phone off the counter and hands it over.

 

Zayn swipes to the right across one of the notifications, eyes widening slightly as he reads the tweet that’s responsible for this whole mess. (This whole mess being, of course, Harry’s renewed existential crisis and impending heartbroken breakdown.)

 

“Oh. Fuck. That one,” Zayn says.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Seven hundred and forty thousand retweets? That’s intense.”

 

“It’s up to that many now? Jesus, it was only at seven hundred thousand like two hours ago.” Harry runs a hand through his hair. Zayn follows his hand with his eyes, knowing that that was one of Harry’s nervous habits.

 

“Here, let me make you something. Vodka or rum?”

 

Harry shrugs noncommittally. “Anything with alcohol in it.”

 

“Rum it is.” Zayn grabs a bottle and pours a generous amount into a glass. “I know it sucks, like, _more_ than sucks, but you gotta keep your head up, yeah?” Zayn fills up the glass the rest of the way with Coke and ice cubes. “Like, don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened, or whatever.”

 

Harry can’t help but laugh. “You know, you should really get some original material for your pep talks. Everyone knows that’s from a motivational poster.”

 

Zayn shrugs and presses the drink into one of Harry’s hands, the phone into the other. “Come on, the show’s about to start.”

 

Harry follows Zayn into the living room and settles on an armchair. Notifications are coming in so frequently that his screen doesn’t even have time to go black in between them, it just stays lit up, more and more notifications piling up. Harry flips it facedown, and takes a large gulp of his drink, the aftertaste of the rum burning his throat a little.

 

It feels good, kind of.

 

\- - -

 

Two hours later, Harry is drunk. He’s not sure how many drinks he’s had, he just knows that one of the boys kept refilling his glass every time it neared empty, and he never got around to eating those wings, and Niall coerced him into doing shots with him, and now his vision is a little blurry whenever he turns his head.

 

His head, speaking of which, feels quite fuzzy, like someone’s stuffed cotton balls in his ears and they made their way into his brain. He giggles at the thought of his brain being replaced with dozens and dozens of cotton balls, enough to spill out his ears and leave a trail wherever he went, like Hansel and Gretel’s breadcrumbs. The news is on Niall’s obscenely massive television, and there’s a Twitter feed scrolling across the bottom of the screen, and that perks up a tiny, distant part of Harry’s cotton ball brain.

 

Twitter. Something that has to do with Twitter. Harry’s throat warms up again as he takes another swig from his drink, the ice cubes pressing up cold against his lip. Distracted by this mix of sensations, Harry flips his phone over from where it had been sitting on the arm of the chair.

 

He presses the home button, the screen lights up, and immediately the warmth in his throat turns into a hot, painful burn. The screen is full of Twitter notifications – more retweets of a certain tweet he was mentioned in – and Harry remembers.

 

He remembers being sixteen and not really being sure if he was gay until he found himself snogging Louis in a bathroom in the X Factor house. He remembers the way they stumbled into the bathtub, how nice and cool the porcelain of the tub felt against his bare back, how nice and warm Louis’ body had felt pressed up against his. He remembers how Louis smelled like soap and musk and a tiny bit of summer sweat, how he had tasted like cherries.

 

He remembers being sixteen and knowing, inexplicably, with one hundred percent certainty, that he was in love. For real, this time. Not simply infatuation with female classmates who came to a few White Eskimo shows and smiled at him in the corridors, but love. Real, deep, life-changing love. Love he could write songs about.

 

He remembers the interview where they were asked if they wanted kids. He remembers still being a teenager, being sat next to Louis, and the two of them looking straight at each other as they both answered yes. He remembers a year later, when they had picked out what they were going to name their kids (Jack and Darcy), when they had picked out the colors for the nursery and decided that they were going to adopt a dog and name it Ronnie.

 

He remembers every single time they’d brushed hands as they passed each other on stage, and found a way to sit next to each other in interviews, and whispered things to each other in front of thousands of people, knowing no one else would ever know what had been said.

 

He remembers going to Leeds together, Louis sneaking into his room and laying down next to him, with his stomach pressed against Harry’s back, and he remembers Louis’ arms slipping around him without a moment’s thought or hesitation. They fit together perfectly. Always had.

 

He remembers the tweet. Just after midnight on the third of October 2011. They had just been on the phone with each other, each lying in their bed at home. Louis had told him about Eleanor, how she was going to be his girlfriend now, because management thought that the rumors were getting to be too much, they were gaining too much traction in the media, and they had to protect the band. Protect the band. Harry remembers how many times Louis had said it. Harry remembers fighting back tears, eyes burning and throat closing up, until he couldn’t fight it anymore. He cried into the phone, still clutching it to his ear, listening to Louis cry on the other end. He remembers how they promised to always love each other. He remembers how Louis promised that Eleanor wasn’t important, she was just a figure, a prop, he had even used the word beard. He remembers falling asleep to the sound of Louis’ breathing, waking up to see the call was still going – seven hours and forty-three minutes – and that he had a Twitter notification from Louis:

 

_@Louis_Tomlinson: Always in my heart @Harry_Styles . Yours sincerely, Louis_

He remembers crying again.

 

He feels pressure on his arm, and blinks slowly until he remembers that now he’s in Niall’s living room, and Zayn is squeezing his arm, right over the rose tattoo.

 

“Alright, man? You look a bit…” Zayn shakes his head, concern furrowing his brow.

 

Harry blinks slowly again, then lurches up from the chair.

 

“I gotta do something,” he mumbles.

 

“You alright?” Zayn asks again, concern written all over his face.

 

“I gotta go outside.” Harry chugs the rest of his drink, rum burning in his throat, and presses the glass to Zayn’s chest.

 

Harry pushes past him, stepping over Niall, who’s passed out on the floor, and goes outside to the balcony. He slides the door shut behind him and doesn’t realize his hands are shaking until he looks at his phone. The floor beneath him feels like it’s swaying, like he’s on a very gentle boat ride but like he might be sick anyway.

 

He manages to open up his contacts, and scrolls down to L. He presses his thumb to Louis’ name, sucks in a breath of the frigid night air to soothe his throat, and holds the phone to his ear.

 

The ringing breaks through some of the cotton balls that have taken over Harry’s brain. Nervousness is tying knots in his stomach, and he grips the phone tightly as it rings.

 

Finally, “Hello?”

 

The sound of Louis’ voice all but breaks him, shatters him into a million little pieces right there on the balcony. Harry sucks in another breath, the cold settling deep in his chest, filling the hole that was left there six months prior.

 

“Louis,” Harry says, even more slowly than usual.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“It’s me. It’s Harry.”

 

Harry swallows, trying to clear the lump clogging up his throat, but it only makes the alcohol burn worse.

 

There’s a pause.

 

“Yeah, I know. Showed up on the screen.”

 

Harry leans back against the glass door, sliding down until he’s on the floor. He hasn’t heard Louis’ voice like this in so long. He almost sounds normal. Not like how Harry’s heard him in the six months since they broke up. Always short, fast-talking, louder than normal in an effort to compensate for the awkward space between them, careful not to look Harry in the eye, careful not to sit next to him, careful not to walk too close by him. Keeping a safe distance, maintaining the space.

 

Harry feels his eyes burning, just like he remembered, and presses the palm of his hand against his eye socket until he sees stars.

 

“Did you mean it?”

 

“What? Harry, it’s like half two in the morning –”

 

“Did you _mean it_?” Harry’s voice is desperate, shaky, hoarse from all the alcohol.

 

“Mean what?”

 

“Did you really mean I’m always in your heart?” Harry chokes back a sob on the last word, the tears finally spilling over and running hot down his cheeks.

 

Louis is silent. Harry can hear a car or two passing by on the street below him, maybe a plane passing by overhead, but right now, right here on this balcony, he can’t even hear himself cry. All he can hear is the blood rushing through his head, his heart thumping loudly in his ears. He drags his hand across his face in an effort to wipe the tears, but more take their place in a matter of seconds. His head still feels fuzzy and his throat is still burning and he aches everywhere. It’s like there’s something immensely heavy and immovable sitting right atop his chest, pressing down on his sternum and his ribs and he’s really not sure how all of his bones haven’t shattered.

 

It certainly feels like everything else has.

 

Harry becomes acutely aware of the cold glass against his back – he can feel it through the layers of his clothes – but he stays there. The cold grounds him, anchors him, helps him to stay in one piece so the January wind doesn’t pick up the pieces of him and blow him away.

 

Louis still hasn’t said anything. Harry feels like it’s been hours; the cold from the glass is seeping into his skin and settling in his bones, the wind blows his hair out of his face, leaving him feeling overexposed and childlike again.

 

Harry hears Louis’ breath catch on the other end. His body tenses up, preparing for the worst, like he’s lost control of a car and now he’s about to crash head-on into a brick wall. Nothing to do but watch the wall get closer and wait for the collision.

 

“Of course I did, Haz,” Louis whispers.

 

Harry’s breath escapes him in one long exhale. “You did?”

 

“Of course.” Louis’ voice is shaky. “I never – I never wanted this to happen. It’s been shit, not having you in my life. I don’t know where I am, I don’t know _who_ I am. I’m lost, Haz.”

 

“Then why –“

 

“Because it was too much, the paps and the rumors and Eleanor. People would find me everywhere I went, shouting at me, asking me when El and I were getting married, shouting that I was being rude for trying to get away from them. I couldn’t – I couldn’t handle it. And you would be there, waiting for me to get back, when I’d just had to kiss her in front of everybody, and be with her in front of everybody, and be straight in front of everybody, and you were always so optimistic and happy and you loved me so much and I felt like I was letting you down. I couldn’t handle letting you down.”

 

The words come out of Louis in a rush, like he’d been holding his breath, waiting to say them. Harry feels like he can’t breathe.

 

“Lou –“

 

“I’ve always loved you, Harry. You’ve always been it for me. Always in my heart. Every second.”

 

Harry hears Louis’ breath catch again before he says, “I love you, Haz. I’m sorry.”

 

Harry feels like the weight that’s been sitting on top of him, crushing him for six months has finally disappeared. He takes a deep breath, not taking the time to marvel at how much his lungs can fill up, and feels a smile on his lips. A real one.

 

The cold wind gusts across the balcony, but Harry doesn’t even feel it. Warmth has bubbled up inside him like champagne, filling all the spaces that had been left empty and cobwebby for months. He feels like he can breathe, like he can move, like his heart is full and actually beating and not just trying to thump along.

 

He runs a hand over his tattooed arm, fingertips lingering over the ship, the heart, the rose, the anchor.

 

Louis has always been his anchor.

 

“I love you too, Lou. Always.”


End file.
